Rebirth of consciousness
by SMAC Fanatic
Summary: First chapter up - Lady Deirdre Skye has to make a difficult decision. Will she stay silent? Please R


DISCLAIMER: Firaxis owns Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire - I just choose to play around with the factions a little :) So please don't sue me! *puppydog eyes* cos I can't afford it...  
  
*Click...click...click...*  
  
The numbers tick onward. The screen flickers, the digits at the right hand end of the display blurring as they count infinitesimal slivers of time. Those further left are now dormant, having done their duty. The years have been counted, the months computed, the days carefully ticked off by the relentless march of numerals.  
  
Now only one hour remains.  
  
-1 hour from zero:-  
  
*"In the great Commons at Gaia's Landing, we have a tall and particularly beautiful stand of white pine, planted at the time of the first colonies. It represents our promise to the people, and to Planet itself, never to repeat the tragedy of Earth."  
-Lady Deirdre Skye,  
'Planet Dreams'*  
  
White pine on every side, their tall, majestic trunks reaching to the dark blue sky of Planet. Two suns burned low on the horizon, and one of Planet's two moons lit half the sky with its silvery radiance.  
Lady Deirdre Skye, leader of the Stepdaughters of Gaia, sighed heavily as her tired eyes roamed this incredible scene. Although she never tired of drinking in Planet's beauty, this time it felt like the weight of Pholus itself was upon her shoulders.  
Peace above all things, the greatest motto of the Stepdaughters. Gaian acolytes used it as a meditation word, concentrating upon the single syllable which meant so much to them and to their way of life.  
And now Lady Deirdre was going to let it shatter, let it smash into a thousand pieces, by her own inaction. No delegating this time, no-one to help take the responsibility. Her decision and hers alone would precipitate this calamity.  
"Lady?"  
She half-turned, squinting her eyes against the last dying rays of Centauri A as it slipped beneath the horizon. Lindly, her favourite Talent, was walking towards her, her long satin shift shimmering cyan-blue in the low light.  
Suddenly, a wave of desperation washed over Deirdre. She longed to tell Lindly what was about to happen, to explain why she'd made this awful choice, to pour out everything that was weighing on her.  
Before she knew what was happening, she found herself clinging to the closest tree, its bark rough against her face, watering it with her quiet tears. As Lindly came up beside her, she began to speak.  
  
  
It had all begun several years ago, with the severing of diplomatic relations between the Believers and the Peacekeepers. Miriam had accused Lal of keeping vital technological data from her, and demanded that he surrender it to her, invoking the UN Charter that he held in such high regard. When he offered to exchange his data on bio-engineering for hers on advanced military algorithms she flew into a rage, accusing him of wanting to build punishment spheres in order to oppress his people and take away their God-given freedom. He in turn took intense umbrage at the suggestion that he, of all people, would infringe human rights - especially after Miriam's defeated attempt to repeal the UN Charter! - and subsequently refused point-blank to transmit his files. Miriam had called down a plague upon him and declared Vendetta.  
Battle had been joined in earnest, but Miriam's troops - while numerous - were sorely under-equipped, their particle impactors no match for the silksteel armour sported by Lal's troops. In turn, Lal's chaos guns had proved devastatingly efficient against the Believers' plasma armour.  
The crunch came when the Peacekeepers came dangerously close to breaking through the Believing front line. The Believer troops had been pushed back almost into Great Zion, and the governor had appealed to Sister Miriam for aid. In response, she requested an audience with Chairman Yang, offering him one of her bases in exchange for his declaration of Vendetta against the Peacekeepers.  
Within hours, Hive needlejets were screaming in on the Peacekeepers' north flank, with Miriam's troops again pushing eastward into Lal's territory. Desperate for support, Lal had called upon his allies, Prime Function Aki Zeta-5 and Foreman Domai, who had quickly sent reinforcements to Pravin Lal's failing front lines.  
  
The resulting war had lasted for over five years, but there could only have been one outcome. Yang's overwhelming military advantage, bolstered by Miriam's newly equipped chaos troops, had proved too much for even the combined forces of the Peacekeepers, Drones and Consciousness. There had been dreadful scenes when the Hive unleashed their nerve gas pods on Consciousness soldiers near Phi Lumiere, killing troops and civilians alike. The Believers had completely obliterated UN Temple of Sol, leaving not a single Peacekeeper citizen alive.  
All other factions had levelled economic sanctions against the Believers and the Hive in response to such atrocities, but Miriam's rage was by now incandescent, and she ignored them. Yang's economy was all but crippled for the next ten years, but the gains made in territory and population far outweighed his loss in energy credits.  
  
Eventually, the last bastions of resistance fell. Yang's forces poured into UN Headquarters, dragging Brother Lal from his last sanctuary and imprisoning him in a punishment sphere back at The Hive. Domai managed to negotiate a last-minute blood truce with both Sister Miriam and Chairman Yang, and his faction had survived - but only just. Now merely two bases remained to him - Free Drone Central and Smokestack Hill - and his great industrial empire lay in ruins.  
The Cybernetic Consciousness, too, had just managed to endure. Barely two thousand Cyborgs had fled the conquest of Alpha Prime, flying to the ocean's shore and desperately piling into their last fleet of transport foils. Deirdre's Empath Guild had tracked them across the waters to the unexplored eastern continent, where they had set up a new base named *Secessus* - in the old Latin tongue of Earth, Retreat.  
But Aki Zeta-5 had not gone with them.  
  
Lindly's head came up and around to face her Lady as these words left her lips.  
"But...if Aki Zeta-5 didn't go with them, then *where is she?*"  
"That," replied Deirdre, choking back a sob, "is the problem." 


End file.
